Road Rage

I am a careful driver. I am a safe driver. Careful and safe - that's me. I wear my seatbelt religiously and make my passengers do the same. I drive the speed limit. Unless I am being tailgaited, and then I drive r-e-a-l-l-y ... s-l-o-w. I have never been pulled over. Okay, except for the time I was pulled over on my 17th birthday, but that's because I lived in Frederick, population:50. All the cops knew me and this particular one knew it was my bithday and wanted to wish me a happy one, and let me know my tail light was out. I've never really been pulled over. I've also never been in an accident. Okay, except for the time that blind girl pulled off the curb right into my passenger side door. But she was blind and had forgotten her cane that day, and clearly didn't see me. That car had so many dents and scrathes that I figured Dad would never notice anyway, so I excused it and drove on. I've never really been in an accident. I am a safe, careful driver.

So the other day I had errands to run. As you all know, we have a wedding to plan, and we need supplies. A stack of bridal magazines, a binder, dividers with pockets, sheet protectors - you know, the basics. So I got in my little jeep, and off I went. After gathering the needed materials, I headed to Barnes & Noble for the third book in the Left Behind series. You know- for my sanity during the planning. It was a beautiful day. Strong winds that rock the entire vehicle, 102 degree temperature, not a cloud or shady spot in sight. It was fabulous!

So here's the deal. When you are driving along at 45 mph, and some woman pulls out in front of you to make a left turn - and stops - careful kind of goes out the window and mere survival becomes key. I had three choices: run into her, slam on my breaks and get rear-ended by the bozo on my bumper, or move. I chose move. I very calmly moved into the right lane. Okay, so I should have checked my blind spot more carefully, but my eyes were kind of fixated on certain death five feet in front of me. Unfortunately, there was a black SUV in said right lane. Fortunately, I did not hit her. Less fortunately, I cut her off pretty close. Oops! It was a close call. That's were we could have left it, a close call. But no, we just could not leave it there.

After a few seconds, my heart started beating again. However, before I had a chance to breathe a much needed sigh of relief, all Hell broke loose. Ms. SUV started laying on her horn behind me. When I looked up, she was making a most inappropriate gesture with her middle finger. At Me! As if that wasn't bad enough, she cut off the bozo who had been on my bumper, still laying on the horn (just in case she hadn't gotten my attention yet) and pulled up beside me. She was yelling something, but we both had our windows up so who knows what profanities she was screaming (At Me!) . To top it off, the person three inches in front of her stopped, and because she was more interested in me than the road, she almost rear-ended them. Thank God the light in front of us was green, and that we were turning separate ways, or she probably would have tried to drag me from my car!

As I drove away, I was surprised at how rattled I wasn't. I actually wasn't even embarassed about my blunder, because I was too embarassed for her. In her explosion of rage (At Me!) she almost got us all killed. I also remember thinking "boy, this would make great blog material!".

Road Rage is a terrible thing. It causes people to make complete idiots of themselves, puts lives (and cars) in danger, strains your middle finger and voice, and enables blog-addicts to feed their habit. It just basically puts everyone in a really bad mood.

Needless to say, I have come to the conclusion that there are two types of people who should not be allowed to drive. Those who are too blonde to check their blind spot, and those that are too mean to just let it go.